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So what do you know – or what do you think you know?
Written by: Nicholas FraserArticle Overview: One of my roles is to challenge current thinking. Businesses are formed and develop over time and certain ideas and concepts become embedded in the organisation. Mentors like myself challenge those ideas to ensure that the business remains fresh.
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So what do you know – or what do you think you know?
So what do you know – or what do
you think you know?
One of my roles is to challenge current thinking.
Businesses are formed and develop over time and certain ideas and concepts
become embedded in the organisation. Mentors like myself challenge those ideas
to ensure that the business remains fresh.
I hope
some of you did look at the Hans Rosling internet seminar I featured last
month? Most of you probably not; well I do encourage you to look at it, not
only for the content (which is enlightening, amusing and enriching) but also
for the lesson it teaches us in having certain set thoughts in place. Look it up under Ted,com
As you will see if you look at it, the speaker Hans
Rosling asked the following questions of his graduate students and professors
from the Karolinska Institut in Stockholm.
I ask you to try and answer them too; just answer how your instinctive response
to the questions would be.
Question: The following countries are in
pairs. Which of each of the pairs has the highest child mortality rate against
the other. Just answer what you instinctively think. FYI the differences are
more than double the rate of the other country
Sri Lanka or Turkey
Poland or South Korea
Malaysia or Russia
Pakistan or Vietnam
Thailand or South Africa
Now the answers can be found at the bottom of this
article (no cheating!). What it will show aside from a surprise at the answers
(I think) is that the average for the graduate students was 1.8 out of 5 and
2.4 for the Professors. What was your score? Just consider a monkey would get
2.5 by random chance and so if you got less than 2.5 you are worse than a
monkey!! My point here is not about the substance but about the fact that our
perceptions on things may be just plain wrong. So if they are wrong here where
else might they be wrong?
The reason I bring this up is that we go through life
with many preconceptions and areas of ignorance. One of the things I do when I
come into a business is ask BDQ’s – Bloody Difficult Questions. Now they are
only difficult if you do not know the answers. This issue was brought home to
me recently when reviewing the requirement for marketing with a client of mine.
He was looking to extend their customer base (grow sales) and I asked him for a
profile of his customer base; geographic, industry type, turnover, no of
employees etc. Was the market changing, who were their prime competitors, why
did customers buy from them? It became apparent there was no clear view of who
their customers were and they had no centralised summary of their current
customer base. So if I were to come in and ask similar questions would you be
able to answer them with ease? If not beware. The market is changing (it always
changes) and if you do not change with it then the business will not survive in
the long term.
The consequent action for my client was to encourage him
to do some research and get out and engage with the market. Find data from
whatever source and assess what he knew and what he didn’t.
So what do you know and don’t you know? Only by having
someone come in and challenge your understanding will that be honestly
answered.
PS The answers are Turkey,
Poland, Russia, Pakistan
and South Africa.
How many did you get right?
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About the Author: Nicholas Fraser RSS for Nicholas's articles - Visit Nicholas's website  He is currently splitting his time with running a new software startup Newera Controls - an exciting Energy Management and Control application and is in the process of raising Venture Capital to launch it worldwide. Click here to visit Nicholas's website   Understanding the market Building Windmills People People People Arctic Lessons in Leadership Surviving the downturn and coming out of it stronger |
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